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Tip o' the Day

She was in a long time--clear to her armpits in the frigid water of a high mountain lake. She'd waded out earlier, farther and farther from the brush-lined shore until she had sufficient room to work her flyrod.

Her first cast landed (a bad choice of words since terra firma lay 50 feet behind) a fat 10-inch rainbow, which she released. She whipped her line again, just head and arms thrusting above the lake surface. Another strike! Another whoop of delight!

I grinned and sat upon a buckskin log to watch my beginning fisherperson-wife engage in the first great fly fishing she'd experienced. My eyes wandered. Our teenage son stood to his knees a quarter of the way around the lake. By the looks of it he was having trouble with his backcasts, snagging brush. Apparently the boy lacked enough savoir-faire to emulate his mother and wade out to his neck.

I leaned down to stick my finger into the icy water, then shook my head. Jane hooked another trout. And another. and another. I yawned and ambled along the lakeshore to watch Marc. "Why don't you wade on out like your mother?" I asked when he snagged another spruce limb.

He peered at me as if I had a toad hanging from an ear. "Why don't you come on out and show me how?"

I smiled and ambled on, heading for the lake's far end. My passion is more for exploring new country than for catching fish. I climbed a low ridge, then sprawled, propping elbows in order to glass the surrounding country.

An ant tickled my nose. I wondered how long I'd slept. Marc was gone; so was Jane. No! There! Sunbeams glistened from a thousand flashing water drops as Jane whipped her flyline. I raised my binoculars.

She hadn't moved from her place. Even as I watched, the rod tip darted to the lake surface, then began jitterbugging.

"You're going to be as shriveled as a 1952 prune," I called after working my way back around the lake.

"I don't care. I'm catching fish!" "You sure as heck are," I said. "You're also catching cold, chillblains, and the hoof part of hoof and mouth disease. Besides, your arms, hands, and face are beginning to light up like a stoplight."

Her line fell into the water as she paused for the first time to look at her sunburning arms. The waterlogged line sank immediately.

However, a plump rainbow brought it back to the surface with the speed of a submarine's missile launch!

Valediction For Revenge -- A Western Series by Roland Cheek: Six novels cataloging the life of Jethro Spring, progeny of a mountain man father and Blackfeet mother. A series of tales of desperate struggles to play the cards fate dealt amid a history of change; from beaver days and "westering" wagons; through the era of vast cattle ranches to corporate boardrooms where schemes are laid to plunder for profit

PROVIDENCE, PRUDENCE OR PROFICIENCY?

No one reaches advanced age withut making accommodations with reality. For instance, I've learned not to spit into the wind, go one-on-one with Michael Jordon, take over a foreign embassy compound in Peru, or sword fight withe the Three Musketeers. And as far as braving flood-stage streams to experience whitewater thrills, huh-uh. The catch-22 in securing advanced age is where does one draw the risk reduction line in order to experience adventure?

Perhaps the line lies within the individual.

Perhaps not, though. After all, one can hardly live a life of adventure if one is no longer breathing.

But one cannot avoid all risk. Drive down a highway, punch a time clock, ride an elevator, climb on a tractor: there's risk somewhere. The truth is, we who've survived to our dotage owe something to providence, as well as to prudence and proficiency. Simply said, we have, in some part, been lucky. Pick up any newspaper on any given day, read the front page or the obituaries to see how lucky.

Recently, two men drowned after overturning a canoe. I've canoed and so have thousands of other paddlers who are still alive. Was our good fortune a result of our dexterity with the craft, or because we weren't hit by the same freak storm as the victims?

Or might their ultimate misfortune occurred because neither man was wearing a life preserver?

Yes mishaps occur, even to the most cautious. That's life. But it's likewise true that mishaps occur more often to the unwary than to the vigilant. My own rule of thumb is that I listen to an inner voice. "Self," says I, "I don't like the way this trail is sloghing off over yon cliff." "Then don't cross it," self says. "Turn around and go back the way you've come."

"Self" tells me he doesn't like to raft rampaging rivers. He says it frightens him to shoot over dishonest standing waves that one moment might leave you feeling cheated with your ease of passage and the next flip your raft end-over-end like the deuce of diamonds in a whirlwind.

I don't like rafting a river when undertows whisper to me--when the whisper of the river cuts short my craft's passage through a pool of surface eddies and the rear of the raft is sucked down for a moment before release. It's times like these when "self" shouts, "Boy, lifejacket or no, if you'd been in the water just then you would be at the bottom of this river."

"Self" also whispters there's danger in crossing a late-summer snowfield on a 65-degree slope; that carrying insufficient water amid desert country is patently stupid; that leaving home without proper clothing to survive a November blizzard is idiotic.

Likewise one cannot be overly endowed between the ears to ski up a narrow mountain valley while hearing the rumble of snow cornices falling and avalanches running ahead and behind. Better to stay out of those kinds of places when snow conditions threaten.

I'm distrustful of wild-eyed horses and sloe-eyed women; most sharp talking car salesmen and all horse traders.

How you reckon I got that way? Mostly by learning the hard way. What has happened with us old geezers, of course, is that we've learned through experience. What may be even more pertinent is that, in order to have learned, we must first have lived through the pain. To do so sometimes required a modicum of skill, a plethora of gritted teeth, a bundle of effort, nerves of a Buddha, and a ton of luck.

At sixteen I depended on 90% luck and 10% skill. At twenty-five it was 90% skill and 10% luck. Nowadays I'm not sure of the percentages, but both are seasoned with one hell of a lot of experience topped off with an even greater degree of prudence.

Roland Cheek wrote a syndicated outdoors column (Wild Trails and Tall Tales) for 21 years. The column was carried in 17 daily and weekly newspapers in two states. In addition, he scripted and broadcast a daily radio show (Trails to Outdoor Adventure) that aired on 75 stations from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean. He's also written upwards of 200 magazine articles and 12 fiction and nonfiction books. For more on Roland, visit:

www.rolandcheek.com

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